It’s weird sometimes how I was just toying with a sample of my own material and bam, then it’s like exactly what I wanted to express at the time I made this track, somewhere in March or April in Paris. So dark too. All the music I make in L.A. is so much brighter.
I wish I could have mixed it better though but fuckit, it’s raw.
I feel like I have a groove to explore here. Something that is me.
Music: me Picture: my possible future car from across the street.
I noticed how well they keep smells from where you have stayed long enough. I have smells from Paris and Silver Lake in mine. Still in.
Smells are so powerful. I reach for a shirt and I feel different just because of some scent that triggers an avalanche of thoughts and memories.
It’s like a little treasure that I kind of want to keep as long as I can.
Because it is insanely hard. In terms of logistics, I admire them all (and yes MS a bit more because they entered that space when competition was fierce compared to Sony who entered the console market at a time when Sega was shooting themselves in the knees, NEC was dead and Nintendo was asleep).
‘member 1994 y’all. 20 years ago. fffffuuuuu
OK, think about it this way: you’re building a device that needs to be powerful, that will be pushed and stressed out to the max for 12 hours or more, that needs an original input (gamepad), that will be sold widely and needs to be 100% stable with super simple software to use on the surface while doing super complex things under.
It was pretty easy in the 80s, 90s and early 00s.
A console is billions of transistors today, these are very complex machines that need to behave perfectly, all the time.
No desktop computer or laptop really does that, they all idle a lot. A console is meant to run games, one if not the most horsepower-hungry software developed. A console is either off or burning.
Have you seen the mess that is to make a gamepad? How many patents you need to avoid? How hard it is to find a manufacturer that will be able to make them perfect all the time, millions of them without breaking in customers’ hands and without costing you a fortune?
Making a console aka computer game box is a crazy challenge with unlimited variables, it makes me sweaty just thinking about it.
This is why Steam boxes are not here. This is why Ouya is kind of gone and why so many Android consoles are pretty much vaporware at this time. This is why Apple is not doing any of this (no profit? bye), and why it cost Microsoft billions and fifteen years to get somewhere after living hell with the 360 red ring of death (but they had to rush and take the lead in the race). This is why they advertise their work on their gamepad or Kinect because yeah, they worked super hard.
This is why Nintendo is so cheap on tech and always makes everything possible to not ruin their profit margin because all that R&D shit is super expensive.
That’s why all manufacturers are super cool with developers going 2D or light 3D, or are more than happy to show you the features like watching Netflix or tweeting. That’s so much less trouble hardware-wise than the GTAs and the like which are definitely hitting those machines hard while not coming out fast enough (GTA is basically a generation late, first time ever). I don’t think it’s just to show that they’re cool, it’s a way to use that box for less intensive tasks while making consumers think that it replaces other boxes, that consoles are a deal.
The problem is that people got those machines to have them hit hard, they want some jaw dropping “graphics”. At the same time, they’re happy not to have to spend $60 minimum to have fun while they don’t understand why PS4 games are more beautiful but feel and play the same as the PS3 ones. Look around, people are kind of over it and this is why I see so many people arguing that PCs are the best deal ever on every site I go to. Because, it’s true.
That’s why we only have three manufacturers and that’s why they fight so hard to get exclusives. Good luck, guys.
Wow, it’s already been a month that I’m here on Adams.
I don’t know how to describe my feelings over this year, I just feel like a runner who’s only been hearing his own breathing after doing a very long run in the sun. Some kind of zone where happiness or pain or anything else doesn’t really matter because they don’t exist.
I’m in the zone!
Somewhere on the West Side, on my bike, smiling to oblivion because I like simple things like a nice-looking street.
Spent the last two days working in Burbank, it was so great. I have so many cool moments with my Uber drivers. 95% of them are Armenian dudes and if you happen to be French, just let the word out that you know Armenian culture a bit through Charles Aznavour and then you’re best buddy forever. Last night we were laughing too much, dude stepped on his brakes like crazy at some point.
Just talking about the usual, work, divorce stuff, immigration, US/EU comparison, kids, how I might not get a car or maybe… It is amazing to share or get a point of view, perspective from people that are like you but also totally not. Soccer Football is making me closer to so many immigrants too. This is where you see how truly universal that game is, except for Americans so that’s kind of fun.
I’m still high on how services here are awesome. The lady at Burbank’s Starbucks know what I want after going there only once. I feel comfortable in no time everywhere and it feels great.
Travelling between different neighborhoods, especially on my bike makes me love the part of the city I’m living in and loving others too. For the first time in my life, I kind of get what’s like to be like “this is my territory”, I had never felt that way in France.
My neighborhood is growing on me. Mostly Mexicans and black people, Blaxicans too. Everyone is super nice, it’s calm. My roommates are still awesome, I’m running this place a bit –taking care of things- and it feels like I’m really at home.
And those sunsets on the roof, oh boy. Last Friday, when the sun was two minutes away from disappearing, when the yellow and orange are super sharp, I was up there. Temperature was absolutely perfect, perfect wind, just enough to wear a light jacket, I was sitting and chilling, reviewing music I’m making in my headphones, watching the sunset while vintage cars –40s Oldsmobile and roadster- were parking across the street, skateboarders doing tricks on the parking lot half a block away, and fireworks were going off around.
It was fantastic.
“I guess we learn not to do it again” is not what most people are guessing.
It boggles my mind that people accept their health to be tracked and visualized with stupid numbers, when it’s to me the most private thing ever that I don’t want to share with mega corporations, at all.
Also, the human body is so complex that we’re still not sure about how everything works, how the fuck your stupid monitor on your arm can help you, I don’t fucking know. Being healthy is not a race against others what is wrong with you people?
Personally, the best way to take care of my meat envelope is to simply listen to it. Closing my eyes. Paying attention to what’s going on inside the beast. Kind of syncing what I feel with what I want and what I want with what I feel if that makes sense.
Through the years I lost that habit. But I’m back on it, I know how to listen I just need to do it. Aerophagia, that can be so strong with me sometimes under stress, eating way too fast while looking at a screen, smoking? Gone if I listen to my meat envelope and take my time. I don’t need pills or activity tracker, I just need to stop acting like eating doesn’t require “thinking”, it does, especially after years of not doing so:
Eat slowly.
Chew fully. Pause.
Drink water whenever you feel like it instead of postponing it to the end of the meal because you’re eating like an animal.
Breathe.
Balance your food, listen to your kidneys, if they feel stiff (your lower back hurts? It might be them), go for vegetables and more water. I have plenty of dumb “body notifications” like that that help me feeling and looking good.
Exercise. Even if it’s just a 15 minutes walk that looks like nothing, it’s good for your body, it helps. We think we’re smarter than our systems with our pocket computers. We don’t know shit. You still don’t know shit with your Fitbit “goals” and if you can’t feel happy without an app telling you “yay!” you need to reconsider some stuff in your life, for real.
You can be happy without reward, I know, crazy talk here.
How the body processes food is still some kind of magic and almost unique to everyone. Which is why the Soylent thing is ridiculous too.
We’re only sure of one thing: our food in the West is way richer than what we need. I’m totally cool with meat but I enjoy eating veggies like a rabbit for a couple of days. If I get physical and that the temperature is low, my body will talk: “duuude, give me some pasta and beef”. If it’s hot and that I don’t do a lot except sitting down “duuude, where’s my big salad??” I guess I trained my meat envelope well and got lucky growing up.
Train it too. Early in your life, as early as you can. Don’t give your kids candy, ever. Make them sweat, it’s good for the mind too.
And do not track nothing except your meals in your head, learn to listen. Close your eyes.
Hey girl, ain’t no mystery says the Isley Brothers song but those apartments are still mysterious to me and I so wanted to see them. My picture sucks but I didn’t want to show how gross the parking lot looked like (10 full trash bins, no thanks).
DAT CANTILEVER DAAAAMN
Better, thanks Wikipedia. It’s a student residence so you know them kids, they don’t care about anything. They don’t realize how amazing it is to have a structure built 65 years ago that big, balanced out in the open. It’s beautiful, cocky engineering.
I just love the play with void, it reminds me of sound and playing with silence. So important, seems easy, it’s not.
I’d love to see the layout inside. I saw students going in but I didn’t want to creep them out. It’s in the middle of UCLA with fraternities and sororities all around and here I am parking my bike and looking at that building for 20 minutes from every angle legally possible. People don’t and can’t get it. I have done medieval stuff all my life, that futurism is like a ripe banana and I am the fruit fly. I can’t stop staring at it.
15 miles bike ride through the West Side, needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed it as pretty much all my rides in L.A. Well dear Mr. Lautner I was glad to see your work and concrete expertise. I have more addresses to go to. And please dear students, take care of that building it is unique.
It’s pretty simple: no music producer, artist can live off music streaming. Music streaming is the worst possible way to get paid for creating music, it’s worse than the past 40 years of labels royalties fuckups.
We soon are going to be left with a couple of choices, all controlled by a few companies: YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify and the rest (iTunes and Amazon). Just because you’re lazy. Yes music listener, you are part of the equation.
You don’t have nothing with your subscription except when you’re a fan and are willing to pay 45 bucks for a vinyl of your new music crush. Everybody is making more money off music than the musician, when the digital era was supposed to liberate us, creators.
If you love music and don’t have a problem with that, you should.
Thinking that those services are going to be nice and friendly is so ridiculous. Beats/Apple are some of the most ruthless companies in the world, they are not about creating an ecosystem for musicians to grow. Music doesn’t sell, music sells headphones and gadgets. When you see how Beats started, I just don’t believe they are all about connecting artists and you, they’re about selling overpriced stuff for your ears and be at a place where they have control all over us.
YouTube isn’t trustworthy either. SoundCloud plays it cool for now but once they really want to make money, we know what will happen. Here’s an article super confident that things are looking great. They are not if you make music.
The counter argument was that I left out “losers,” and that content producers were at the top of that list. But I’m not convinced that has to be the case with streams. The reason I spoke of opportunities was not that I’m necessarily optimistic, but that I think, faced with an irreversible trend, it’s worth seeking out the light and finding success as the landscape shifts. And many artists are doing just that. There’s a reason artists and labels are so quick to upload their work to SoundCloud and YouTube, even without revenue: there’s some value there, when they have control.
There’s some value but it’s quite ridiculous: we’re giving freebies, that’s sad as hell and not a solution. And soon, we will not have any control once those companies start doing whatever they want. They are smart, you will not see it.
Y’all already hooked on streaming, in two years we’re totally fucked.
Music consumption is at the forefront of entertainment consumption. Because it’s the oldest entertainment. Soon you will have accounts for everything and will not own anything. Convenience is great but what happens if you don’t have the choice you want? What if tomorrow that band that was available on that service is deleted from Spotify databases? It will happen and you will never have an answer.
It’s fucking crazy to me that people don’t react to the pattern of free service that becomes ubiquitous then does whatever the fuck it wants.
We’re losing and I just hate it.
Jesus, I can’t believe how weird my nose looks like. But that’s him right here.
My grandfather passed away after a decade fighting Parkinson’s. Apparently, he woke up as usual and went back to sleep, forever. That’s how we all wanted him to leave. 91? I’m not sure, we all suck at birthdays in my family.
Born in Dunkerque in a modest family, he was enrolled in the Air Force despite the fact that he hated flying, let alone jump from the aforementioned flying plane but he made it through WWII.
That probably changed him forever because he always hated conflict. He’d do anything to fix anything.
He started to fix radios and TVs in the north of France and met my grandmother there -her dad had a coal business and most coal plants were up north- if I recall before they moved to Paris to open a shop on Boulevard St Germain in the heart of Paris.
They started to sell music, music instruments,, music sheets while he was on the road fixing electronics or delivering pianos in the 60s and 70s, probably the most beautiful time to live in Paris ever.
They virtually met all the jazz musicians from that time, French or Americans who were going to play in the neighborhood. I was blown away that they had had freaking Tina Turner and Ike buying stuff, that Manu Dibango was a good friend etc.
When I landed in the family they had just started to retire, the shop was still theirs and my parents attic had TONS of instruments clients didn’t pick up, which made me try sitars and guitars and trombones and turn knobs and press buttons etc.
He was very calm. I loved how he would talk to me like a normal person and not try to baby talk me. He would never judge, always make me feel that it’s too easy to judge and that you should always step back a little bit. He was right. He was the first to make me understand that regardless of what history books say about Europe’s colonization of Africa, it’s messy and he wasn’t proud of what France and Belgium had done.
Self made man, colossal culture, he knew so many things from what year that bitch ass Louis XVII died to who built that Parisian neighborhood to how to repair a TV tube I could ask him anything. That was before the internet and Wikipedia you young assholes and basically that was awesome. He would go to the store and take me with him to buy magazines, I would sniff around and start reading one and he would always ask, “would you like to get this one?” and I would nod and know that videogame knowledge was going to come through those pages. At the same time, he knew that I would sit hours and hours in the living room and not do stupid stuff. Good trade.
He made me laugh so much. He loved dark comedy and English humor. I so wish I had some audio recordings.
Dat ninetiesness. Also I think she’s about to smash my face.
Dude knew how to handle a bottle and a nice meal too. I kind of wish I had known him earlier but in the end, he had a good run and Parkinson’s a bitch.
See you, wise man.
Third week was meh but I moved in a new place last Sunday, at the corner of South LA. Settling down. Damn it feels good.
So this 4th week was all new stuff, new people, new habits, and I think I really found a gem over here. I’m almost like I don’t want to say anything so that no one moves in my new neighborhood. That’s right, I can do that.
It’s funny how Paris or Silver Lake were vertical –buildings or hills- and now it’s totally horizontal at the exception of my Baldwin Hills, that I visited for the first time last year, dreamed to be around ever since and this year well, I’m 5 minutes from them after being chosen as the new roommate.
I love it here.
Did I tell you that I enjoy the most beautiful sunsets on the roof? That my three roommates are awesome and my landlord the coolest and greatest?
Yesterday I rode my bike to Burbank (53 kilometers trip) to help a friend with his 55” TV and back having fun in my neighborhood, that day was fantastic and crazy and today was too, seeing so many smiles and faces and wow. So many things in less than a month, it’s overwhelmingly ridiculous.
Now,
Tons of stuff to do. Some financial pressure with all that moving and setting things up going on but ITS ON OH GOD ITS ON SHIT IS REAL
It’s beautiful how it’s easy to watch something, while we have the technical ability to close our eyes.
It’s fascinating how it’s hard to listen to something, while we have no built-in ways to mute our ears.
I guess this is why we browse Tumblr or Instaterest forever but don’t with Soundcloud or Bandcamp.
Or why we loop a song over and over –so much information- but don’t to that degree with a movie or a picture.
This is what makes sound such a powerful, timeless, universal and really hard thing to comprehend, while visuals are ephemeral, personal and easy to understand.
The dissonance is that we don’t value sound so much while our entire species survived thanks to our ears accuracy. Our human intellect from our conscience –inner voice- to communication, is sound-based.
When I see kids comments on YouTube being like, “man that 71 jam is blowing me away, I never thought music could be so good I wanna cry now” it is making me feel good to dig, work and live through sound and music.
Because that universality is prodigious and through our digital lives being handed to incompatible silos, is becoming more precious everyday.